Has anyone been to the doctor lately and had the physician use a computer in the examination room? This practice will become increasingly common as the nation transitions to use of electronic health record (EHR) systems, a change that will likely accelerate thanks to $27 billion in financial incentives that are part of President Obama’s stimulus funding. The federal government’s goal is to computerize all Americans’ medical records by 2014, though this goal is probably unrealistic.
The hope is that health information technology will improve treatment outcomes, efficiency, and patient safety and significantly reduce costs. Some interesting questions have emerged, however, as to whether the technology, in this relatively early stage of development, raises new medical malpractice concerns. I have written extensively about this issue here.
Relying largely on paper records would be unthinkable in almost any other profession, and thus medicine seems to be trailing most other fields in adapting to modern technology. However, EHR systems require clinicians themselves to enter data into the computer rather than to rely on clerical staff to do so. As described in this compelling account, EHR systems create significant new work demands and take time away from other important forms of patient care.
These are interesting issues to think about in teaching health law or computer law courses as well as any time we visit a medical office. I would welcome your sharing any negative or positive experiences you’ve had with health care providers who use EHRs.
I've had both positive and negative experiences. One major medical center here in St Louis has a very effective EHR system in place. They scan your ID, insurance card, consent forms, lab results, etc., and any provider in their system can access the information if needed to provide care for the patient. This has come in handy on a number of occasions where I've had to receive treatment from different specialists within the system. Saves time (no need to complete forms over and over again) and the providers have immediate access to my records. On the other hand, just a few weeks ago I received a letter indicating that a laptop was stolen and that the laptop had my information on it. The letter went on to say that, although unauthorized access to my information would be unlikely (since it was password protected), they would pay for 1 year of credit monitoring. Still did not make me feel so good.
Also, there are some pretty innovative EHR systems on the market. Some can digitize language from dictated notes and create searchable text documents. Since such systems only require the doctor to dictate notes into a handheld device, they may actually create less documentation demands and increase the time for patient care. I'm part of the Law & Policy Workgroup for Missouri's statewide health information exchange (under HITECH) - as you can imagine it's quite a challenging endeavor.
Posted by: Efthimi Parasidis | February 18, 2011 at 02:06 PM